This year, a large group of girls, 40, earned the Girl Scouts’ highest award – the Girl Scout Gold Award. They were recognized at a reception at Maritz in Fenton earlier this month.

Earning the Girl Scout Gold Award puts girls among an exceptional group of women who have used their knowledge and leadership skills to make a difference in the world. Less than one percent of all Girl Scouts earn the Girl Scout Gold Award. With talent, passion, commitment and determination, they can make changes in their communities and impact people around the world.

The Girl Scout Gold Award is a national award that a Girl Scout Senior or Ambassador, girls in grades 9-12, may choose to pursue.

The Girl Scout Gold Award requires a suggested 80 hours of planning and implementing a challenging, large-scale project that is innovative, engages others and has a lasting impact on its targeted community with an emphasis on sustainability.

Some of this year’s Gold Award projects included:

A girl whose personal experience with losing her family home in a fire inspired her to create care packages for local fire stations to deliver to families within 24-48 hours after a house fire. Her project will be sustained as a non-profit organization that continues to donate care packages

A student-athlete who suffered side effects from a concussion for 16 months prompted her to create a plan for families, teachers, counselors, coaches and friends to help others who suffer from concussions. Now that she has graduated from high school, her school will continue to use the materials to counsel future students recovering from concussions

A girl who completely reorganized her high school’s choral music library and its 30,000 copies of sheet music. As music arrives at school in the future, students will enter the pieces into the system she created

To be considered for the Gold Award, girls must have completed the following prerequisites: earned the Girl Scout Silver Award as a Girl Scout Cadette in middle school and completed one Girl Scout Senior or Ambassador Leadership Journey or completed two Girl Scout Senior or Ambassador Leadership Journeys. Journeys help girls understand what it means to be a leader who makes a difference in the world through unique leadership and advocacy challenges.

Since 1916, the Girl Scout Gold Award has represented excellence and leadership for girls everywhere.

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About Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri

Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri is committed to building girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. To join, volunteer or donate to Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, call 800.727.GIRL (800.727.4475) or visit www.girlscoutsem.org. Girl Scouts is a proud United Way member and is supported by the following United Way agencies: United Way of Greater St. Louis, United Way of the Mark Twain Area, United Way of Adair County/Northeast Missouri and Franklin County Area United Way. Follow Girl Scouts on... Twitterhttp://twitter.com/GirlScoutsEM and Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/GirlScoutsEasternMO.

Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri is a proud United Way member and is supported by the following United Way Agencies: United Way of Greater St. Louis, United Way of the Mark Twain Area, United Way of Adair County/Northeast Missouri, United Way of St. Francois County, Franklin County Area United Way.